Knittypants

On Hartlots

"Mom, what's a hartlot?" my 9 year old daughter asked me the other day. "Huh! W-what did you ask? I stammer back. "You know, a hartlot, what's a hartlot? I heard someone talking about it the other day and I want to know what it is." "Uh, ummmm....." my mind races trying to think of what to say to my inquisitive young child. I don't want to give her more information than she needs, but on the other hand, she's not a baby any more and I would rather her hear these things from me than from someone else, and should I correct her pronunciation or not?? I decide to go for the simple truth. "A harlot is a woman who sells sex for money," I carefully answer, hoping that will be enough of an answer. "Oh, like a prostitute." she says carelessly as she bounces off.     Writing about hartlots, my mind immediately springs to the famous Yarn Harlot. I wonder if Kaelen would have gone for that explanation? And then I think of my mother, who is fast on her way to becoming a fibery lady of the night, herself. Last time she came to visit me was at the beginning of April. She was absolutely amazed at the different bloggers Flashing There Stash, she kept asking me to click on one more blog, just one more blog, oh how about just one more. Later, I walked into the dining room as she was quickly snapped my laptop shut, looking rather flushed and starry eyed. "What ya doin mom?" I asked. "Oh, nothing." she said breathlessly. Curious, I went over and opened the laptop and checked out the last page she had been looking at, Yarn P*rn!! She was gazing at luscious skeins of gorgeous handpainted yarn!! My mother, the woman who keeps admonishing me over the size of my stash, the woman who looked down her nose at me as she haughtily declared that she is a one project woman, and she will buy yarn for her next project only after she has finished knitting up her current one, this same woman was caught red handed staring lustily at yarn!! Then as she is leaving to go home she slips me $80 so that I can order a bit of yarn for her from KnitPicks. Even considering the lower value of the Canadian dollar, that's a lot of money to be spending on yarn at KnitPicks. And then yesterday she calls me up to tell me, that she's just placed an order with Knitwerx for a sweaters worth of yarn plus some cotton for a couple of bags she would like to make. I think most of my readers would agree with me, that she has started down a very slippery slope, in fact it won't be long before she joins me down here at the bottom :-D The loverly blue yarn at the top is some Jaeger Shetland Aran I bought. I think I am going to make this jacket with it.

My Shell Border Tee

Do you ever get tired of seeing my bedspread? I should try to take pics elsewhere, but the sun shines in so nicely in the morning and it's so easy to take a quick picture. Most of the day I am so busy chasing kids that I don't have time to get out the camera and snap shots of my knitting.

Anyways, I started the Shell Border Tee last week. I actually started it twice, the first time the bottom was way too tight!! I didn't realize how cropped the top was when I bought it, so after a bit of a panic over yarn shortage I decided I probably had enough to lengthen it. But I didn't take into account that the top was designed to start closer to my waist than hips, so I had to rip and add another repeat of the leaf pattern, I also used a lace cast on to try and give the edge a bit more elastic. The long tail wasn't cutting it. I've tried it on and so far so good.

Here is a close up of the shell pattern.

Conquering the Kitty!!

HaHa little kitty hat, this time I will succeed!! I am done pouting and am now reknitting the Kittyville hat from Stitch'n Bitch. Just so everyone knows if I screw up again I am going to throw this hat against the wall, run around the house screaming, violently frog the thing, then throw the yarn in a tangled mess into the very back of my stash and I will never mention the hat on my blog again! If I succeed I will post a finished object next week :-D

I am just showing another picture of the flower washcloth I made a few weeks back. I was asked how I thought the cotton chenille would hold up. Well this cloth has gone through the washer and dryer a couple of times now and still looks pretty good, not as cushy as when first knit but not too bad either. It shed a bit the first few times I used it but has since stopped, so I think the cotton chenille ends up working pretty well for this project.

Last summer, when I was a baby knitter, I was visiting a new yarn shop for the first time, I had money to spend but didn't really know enough about knitting to confidently buy. I had seen that the Cotton Hat from Last Minute Knitted Gifts called for the Mission Falls 1824 cotton so I bought 4 skeins. After making one hat for my daughter, I realized she was never going to leave it on and so I was left with 3 lonely skeins and no real plan.

Then my mom gave me some early birthday cash and the spring Knitty came out. My first look at Mesilla didn't do much for me, but when I went back and had a second look I realized calmer colors, no embroidery, using up stash yarn, and the money to buy adds up to a new project for me.

I really like the color of the sea blue and I figure if the top starts looking too bright, I can always leave out one of the border colors and that will mellow it out some more. Does anyone know if there is a knit-a-long for this? I will have to google.

Sweet Cheeks New Cardi

I think I might have made a mistake with this one!! Why would any sane person make a darling little white cardi with pretty pink trim and perfect buttons, kind of like this one here

and give it to this grubby little monster child!!

My only defense is that I bought the yarn last summer when she was still quite wee and hadn't developed such yucky eating habits! Not much of a defense seeing that she has two older siblings and they were messy eaters as well, I guess I will blame it on Mommy brain!Anyways, Fiona agreed to model for me as long as I let her wear her pink girly shoes. This child will not leave socks on for anything, but the pink shoes are allowed to stay on, who can understand the mind of a small child.

The cardigan buttoned.

Unbuttoned.

A close up of the buttons and the double tubular castoff I used for the button band which looked like crap until after I blocked the sweater and now looks fairly decent.

And the model giving me a cheeky look and walking off the job! This is the V-Neck Cardi with Contrast Ribbing from Baby Knits For Beginners by Debbie Bliss. I used Butterfly Super 10 Cotton in I think Cream and Victorian Rose, but I'm not sure cause I tossed the ball bands. My gauge was off and so the v-neck part isn't as v-necky as the pattern. Also, while I was a smart mom and made sure the length would be good for my daughter's monkey arms I neglected to make sure the body length was right! Whoops! Anyways, I blocked severely and then gave the bottom several strong tugs and it looks like it should fit for the summer. Knit and learn, right!?

Pretty Pink Hearts

I finished the body of Cheesylove. Behold the fluffy fair isle goodness basking in a ray of sunshine!!

And a close up of the hearts,

and even closer

I am pretty happy with the fair isle, not perfect, but it wasn't as hard as I thought it might be and it was even pretty fun. I will be looking for more fair isle in the future. I had my parents visiting for Easter, and had lots of fun with them, but I did get behind with the blogging, so I am going to have to catch up. Lots of knitting was done though, easier to knit and visit than blog and visit, so I will be showing some new projects over the next few days. I think I might have caught some project startitis, I keep throwing new things on the needles!

A Train

Look I made a train!

Well, Jarvis helped! It was his birthday Sunday and this was one of the gifts, it was fun to put together and although it will be a bit before he can handle making it on his own, he seems to be enjoying playing with it. I don't have a picture of my curly headed angel to go with it, the camera battery died on his birthday and he's been too wiggly for pictures since then.

Look where I am at on Cheesylove! This part is so exciting, it's where I get to make fluffy pink hearts! I have to say, it's a pretty amazing experience, soft sturdy merino flowing through my left hand, thrilling kid silk haze through my right hand. Makes me swoon a bit. Which might be why I have had to frog back twice!! The first time I had all my pretty pink hearts in a row, couldn't wait to blog about it, but then I held it up to the light! I had doubled the kid silk haze for the hearts, but it was not enough, you could see the black stranding clearly behind it. Poop! So I tried again, double doubling the kid silk haze (quadrupling it?). I made it about halfway before I realized my count was off, I needed to increase 2 stitches before I started the fair isle, and when I ripped back the first time I forgot to add the stitches back, then somehow I disguised my miscount for the first half of the hearts, but it became apparent as I went into the second set. I tried to think of a way to hide my mistake, but it had to be fixed! Poop! Anyways, I am almost halfway again, and I don't plan to make any more mistakes!

These are buttons for Fiona's cardi. I found them in my button stash. I never knew I had a button stash, but I guess it has been slowly growing with my knitting stash. Now I don't have to procrastinate buying the buttons, so this project should be done soon. My hand is in the picture trying to block out some of the light so I could take a decent picture. The buttons aren't photogenic.

Pretty Yarns

Pretty yarns came to live with me, today. Alpaca With A Twist Fino in Royal Velvet for a Leaf Lace Shawl. This is 70% Baby Alpaca and 30% silk and it's soft, soft, soft. It really doesn't need to be knit up, just held and pet like a little kitten! But, my family has been giving me strange looks so I will just do that when no one is around. Also, Kids Silk Haze in Dewberry for a Diagonal Knit Scarf. Allisonmariecat at The Whole Ball of Yarn(s) asked me about how the Allhemp6 is to work with. I will just post here and let anyone else who may be interested know, too. It's pretty ropy, a bit like knitting with twine, so if cotton hurts your hands, knitting this won't be a pleasant experience. This doesn't hurt my hands, but after knitting for a while my hands get pretty tired and I need to switch to a different project. The drape is wonderful. The part of my project that I have frogged about 6!! times is getting softer and softer, so I think that the more abuse this top gets, the nicer it will feel. I have found more knots than I would like in the first hank of yarn I've used, but I haven't wound up the others so I don't know if the knots are normal or not. I am planning to get some more, to make another top, so I think that means I like it, but I should probably make more progress on my Shell Border Tee before I decide for sure. You really need to go check out Allison's blog, she just posted the cutest pattern for a felted Farmer's Market Bag.

Getting gauge

Well, now that Skully is officially done, it's time to start something new.  I already swatched both these yarns earlier, Rowan Cork in Chilly for Simply Marilyn and Hemp for Knitting Allhemp6 in Aubergine for the Shell Border T-shirt. My gauge was off on both of them, so I ordered needles, waited for them to come and now have swatched again. My gauge is still off! Grrrr.... well, I am not buying more needles, so I am going to make these ones work. It's just a little bit of math, right? And I was going to make a few changes to the patterns anyway, so now I will just be making a few more. Wish me luck!

And, this little pile is Fiona's cardi. All ready to be seamed and stuff. This is where I like to start procrastinating, but Jarvis has recently pointed out that I have made Daddy a sweater, and Kaelen a sweater, and Fiona sweaters, and Mommy sweaters, and it's his turn! So I need to get this cardi finished and start the boy a sweater.

PS Doesn't sunshine make pictures look so pretty, I love spring!

Skully!!

Well, here it is a finished Skully! My husband obviously prefers being in front of the camera rather than behind it. If you have been following my blog for a while, you will notice that any pics of me, are usually only 1 or 2 measly shots, cropped because he left off most of my head. Measly picking is not a problem when he's the one posing, it's hard to pare down! I put yarn specs and my thoughts at the end of the post. Other than that, I will let the pictures speak for themselves, cause really what could I say??!!

The patter is Skully from Stitch'n Bitch. The yarn is Gjestal Naturgarn No.1. I bought the yardage the pattern called for plus an extra skein and still ran out of yarn. Here's a link to a post that showed my leftovers, scroll down a bit, it's the 2nd picture. I did make some changes that probably led to yarn shortage, but they were needed. The pattern had an armscythe depth of 16 inches. I though that was not going to be comfortable so I changed it to 18 inches. I didn't do a 3-needle bindoff on the shoulder seams, I decided to use mattress stitch as I think that seaming gives the bulky sweater more stability. The pattern asks you to pick up stitches for the arms and then knit down, but if I had felt comfortable enough with doing it on my own, I would have knit the sleeves separately and then seamed them to the sweater. I don't really know what I am doing there, so I played it safe and followed the directions. Knitting the sleeves on isn't such a great idea because then you are working intarsia on this huge, bulky sweater and the whole thing is hot and heavy on your lap and that made me pretty grouchy! I knit everything about an inch too short and then blocked like crazy to get the length. I didn't really have a choice with that, though, because of the yarn shortage. Peter likes the sweater, but he complains it's way too hot, I guess that's what happens when you finish a big, bulky wool sweater just in time for spring!!